The room remained silent as Faris's breathing began to slow again, the mages tensed every time his face changed its expression, eyes still closed, eventually, Faris opened his eyes. He looked at each of the mages, who's faces ranged from bewilderment, relief, and a suspicious caution. He turned to Venka, who was smiling at him, mirroring her expression he mouthed the words 'thank you'. Just as he did so the door opened and nearly a dozen imperial guardsmen filed in followed by 6 mages wearing royal regalia.

"Faris Ser, you are under arrest for the unlawful utilization of magic, the murder of 25 men, and for suspicion of aiding and abetting a child smuggling ring." The mage reading this was a young-looking brown-haired mage with a haircut and face reminding him of Harry Potter, along with the giant spectacles, the only thing missing was the lightning bolt scar and wand. "Come with us quietly."

Before Faris could get up Venka stood first. "Over my dead body, he needs rest!"

The man looked at her for a bit before shaking his head and turning to his guards and fellow mages. Before Venka could do anything Faris raised his hand to stop her. "I'll come!" He turned to Venka, "Please don't make this a big deal Venka, I did break the rules."

"There! He confessed! Execute him now!" Lord Rembrant entered the room smugly, his grin was soured by Faris smiling at him.

"I see you're in high spirits, I hope you found the ring well, I'm sure you noticed I didn't touch it's energy." Faris stuck his tongue out, only to be smacked by one of the guardsmen.

"On your feet!" He shouted. Faris had to hold in his temper, closing his eyes he got up and extended his hands, he felt the bindings tighten around him as he walked with them outside.

Venka looked agitated throughout the entire ordeal. Lord Rembrant, deciding to gloat one more time grabbed Faris by his locks, squeezing tightly and shaking him violently. Faris couldn't help but wince in pain. "You will burn for your impertinence you savage mutt."

Faris felt the wind actually at his neck as Rembrant was sent through the wall, Venka charging right after, flames in hand and magic in the air. "Venka no!" He screamed as half the imperial guards pinned him down and the other half along with the mages chased after her and Rembrant. The mage who arrested Faris looked at the whole thing with a contemplative look.

Venka had no patience for this entire thing, she could understand why they were arresting him, he used magic on citizens, and killed them, the way he killed them was terrible, and scary, but she could understand, especially after what Anya did to her family, perhaps it was also because of that recent brush with Anya that she was feeling so angry. The man in front of her used his ruby's reserves flippantly, trying to kill and maim her, failing to bypass her wards he attempted to freeze her, but the ice merely stopped, curving around her wards and bouncing off harmlessly. Venka looked at the ruby, then at the rest of the jewels the man had on his person. Cracking her knuckles, she yelled, "Jierda!" The man's eyes widened as each of his priceless gems, filled with a vault of magical energy, broke, he screamed in fear as the energy exploded out, breaking through his wards. Venka knocked him out of the way before the unleashed energy could kill him, and instead she redirected it upwards, where it dissipated into the city wall. A blast that massive caused the wall to ripple, sirens began to sound as mages and imperial guardsmen began to pour in.

"Seize her!" Rembrant screamed, clothing burned and ruined, he stared at the girl, "Execute her!" He screamed shrilly as the men and women began to surround Venka, who merely looked at them.

"Malthinae!" Of the 100 people, 35 began to panic as their wards alarmingly dropped and they were pinned to the floor, Venka's eyes glowed with magical energy, just as mage students began to run towards the commotion. This included her friends, who stared in disbelief as their friend stared down the mages and imperial guardsmen, dozens of whom had been collapsed on the floor. Even as she held them down flames, lightning, ice spears, rocks, arrows, and spears continued to bounce off her wards uselessly.

"Venka…" Her friends could vaguely understand what was going on, Rembrant was injured, a few mages had pinned down Faris, and Venka was attacking. Before anyone could say anything, Morgan ran out to Venka. A soldier charged Venka as she turned to see him, he extended his hand, blasting out a medium well of lightning into the soldier, knocking him back but not killing him. Katya followed after, then Nya, they stood side by side with Venka, who looked at them in surprise.

"But…" She began, "You shouldn't help, you'll get in trouble."

"Should have damn well thought about that before you decided to do this stupid thing!" Nya sighed in irritation. She looked at the larger group of mages, who had begun to attack in greater earnest. She had no delusions of defeating them.

"Venka, we're sticking with you, we don't understand what's going on, but we trust you and Faris." Morgan chuckled, "Afterall, we've known you guys for a good bit, right?"

Venka faltered, then sighed. "Thanks guys."

"Though seriously." Katya groaned, "My wards are going to fail in a matter of minutes, all that energy we gained lost soon!"

Nya and Morgan both felt her pain, they turned to look at Venka, who was visibly sweating as the blasts continued to rain down, she had been taking the brunt of the magic.

"Venka, you should teleport away, you've been taking all the magic, you've got to take Faris and run!"

Venka shook her head, "Open my satchel." Nya did, revealing a ruby necklace, Venka unceremoniously looped it around her neck and she began to sigh in relief as the crystal began to glow. No one could look at the crystal as it glowed with enough radiance that someone would thing a second sun had risen.

"What the hell is that?" Gaudier mumbled to himself.

Faris chuckled through the pain of his pin down, "Venka's never used her crystal, ever."

"What?" A mage shouts, "That's impossible! She had to have been using it just then! That's how she lasted so long!" He was silenced as more mages and guard's wards began to fail and they were pinned to the ground. More mages and guards entered the streets only to be pinned down, eventually, they realized that the range of one hundred meters seemed to be her limit and stayed there, but they were at an impasse now.

"You don't have the magic power to target her with long range attacks and exhaust her wards just yet, and you fear her retaliating." Gaudier looked around thoughtfully. "This is a foolish Quagmire we are in, why would you all be so irrational."

Venka turned to him murderously, "Your friend over there!" She pointed at Rembrant, who flinched in fear, "hurt my friend, I merely returned the favor."

"Impertinent girl!" Rembrant shrunk back in fear as an arrow grazed his face, launched by Nya.

"Shut up old man!"

The guards stood still, unable to do anything, more than a few of them were absolutely terrified at what was going on. No human should have been powerful enough to do this. The same word began to reverberate through their minds, and a clammy fear began to overtake their hearts.

Shade.

This fear caused them to not move another step.

"Call your friends off." Gaudier looked at Faris, who tried to emulate a shrug from his position.

"I'm not controlling them, you decided to let Rembrant do that."

"And you provoked him."

"And you arrested me."

"You committed a crime!" Gaudier exclaimed in anger. "You are in the wrong."

"You know what's wrong?!" Faris roared in anger now, surprising the guards pinning him down.

"Hold your tongue cur!" One screamed, hitting him hard on the back of the head. Even with the ringing of the ears Faris kept his eyes of Gaudier.

"I get the gist of this whole thing. I'm being arrested for what I did! I admit it! I killed those men!" He turned to the guards pinning him and the mages around him. "But let me fucking ask you this! How many graves did you count outside that warehouse!?" He amplified his voice with magic, causing everyone to turn to him. "One hundred and fifty!" His voice began to break, holding back his emotions he shouted, "That was the number of children in there who were dead, that I had to find and bury, only 20 or so of them were complete corpses." His eyes were reddening as the tears formed. "Do you know how long they had been doing this?! 10 goddamn years!" He looked at Gaudier, who stared back impassively, "Ten damn years," He lowered to a whisper, "And none of those other children where looked into, only one of them, a child of a rich man and his wife, who had been kidnapped merely 5 days before my rescue. And already they had been worried because people were looking for them, when they exploited the people in the slums you looked away."

"Shut your mouth!" The guard reared his hand to strike down again, Faris saw stars, and the guard's hand twisted until it snapped as Venka knocked him off of Faris. He screamed in pain and the fight looked like it was about to break out again, only for a dragon's loud roar to reverberate the entire city section as the rider and his dragon began to circle and land.

Vulcan looked around, his face twisted in shock. "What in blazes are you people doing?!" He stroked his beard quickly.

Gaudier stepped forward, "Honored rider, I ask forgiveness for showing you such a scene, this boy had committed several crimes, and as we made our way to arrest him, his friends interceded and began to disrupt our process, leading to the scene before you."

Volund narrowed his eyes, lips twisted in a snarl smoke billowed from his nose. He stared at Venka, who looked at him with a mix of fear and defiance.

That pup is powerful

Vulcan sighed, "Young man, you are Faris right?"

Faris chuckled, lip cracked, "Sorry I couldn't have met you in better circumstances honored Shur'tugal."

Vulcan sighed, "Did you commit all the crimes they have accused you of?"

"I don't know unfortunately, see, I don't very much like Lord Rembrant, and he certainly doesn't like me, so while I have fairly certain I have done some wrong things, I'd rather not say anything stupid. I would be perfectly fine with being thrown in a jail cell for the time being. But because Rembrant wanted to take the time to gloat we are in this situation now.

Vulcan was taken aback at Faris's brusque and rude tone. "Why are you being so disrespectful boy?! Do you not know your stature? You are a citizen of this kingdom and beholden to its laws!"

Faris sighed, "Sir, have you ever seen a brutalized child? Have you witnessed the laws of a nation fail to protect its people? That's what I witnessed, so I intervened, did I do wrong? Yes, but I won't change what I did."

"So, you do admit to murder!" Rembrant crowed. "That's execution then!"

Vulcan truly did not like him, but right now his most pressing matter was subduing both sides. Volund, what are our chances of stopping that girl? He didn't dare turn his eyes to catch Venka's ire, though he could already feel she was staring at him and his dragon.

The Eldunari were kind enough to give us a decent well of magic, we can overwhelm her, but we will exhaust most of it.

Vulcan shook his head, "Girl, call back your magic, I can assure you my protection, and no harm will come to you, or your friends."

Venka looked hesitant.

"I give you my word, in front of all these men of the Broddring kingdom, as a Rider, you will be under my protection until this is all sorted out." Venka's shoulders relaxed, and the pinned men began to feel as if a load had been taken as they stood up, many of them glared at Venka and her friends with distaste, fear, or hate, but warning growls from Volund caused them to reconsider any ideas of vengeance. Vulcan sighed as he turned to Faris, helping him up he healed the boy's bruises. "This is a mess…"

Nasuada nursed an even worse migraine than before, she had spent the majority of yesterday listening to the problems the citizens came to her about, she remembered listening to an hour-long heated debate between a chicken farmer and a sheep herder over which animal was more productive and thus deserved first pick of the crop in the morning. They eventually came to a compromise, but that made the debate all the more ludicrous and useless in hindsight. Even worse now was the fiasco. Lord Rembrant had made an ass of himself, sparking rage in Venka in a similar fashion to when Lord Jaya and the council had tried to provoke her, the difference being he was somewhat in the right at the circumstances due to Faris's alleged crimes. What was even worse was that some of the children of the Thirteen had decided to join with Venka, who had subdued a sizeable chunk of her delta squad.

"They may be fresh from training but there were still almost 300 of them…" She took a sip of mint tea, swallowing in distaste. This fiasco had reached the public, who were both upset over the happenings and more distrustful of mages. More calls for tougher legislation were being made in. Nasuada would have been alright with this if not for the way some anti-mage groups were using this opportunity, state mages perfectly innocent of the situation were being ganged up on and attacked, and tensions were beginning to rise. "This entire stupid situation!" She sighed, "Hanna!?"

"Yes, my queen?" Nasuada looked at her trusty aid, her old maid had happily retired to a cozy cottage in the royal grounds, so Hanna was a godsend.

"What is the public sentiment over this entire case?"

"Well my queen, the publishers are keeping neutral, but there is an overwhelming public sentiment against Faris, Venka, and the rest of the student mages, since the case's full details have not been shared, the available information makes it seem like a very black and white situation." She perused the files she was juggling. "There will be an initial hearing before the full case in a month. Due to the council's influence Venka and the other first year pearls other than Faris have only been reprimanded by the state, they are facing punitive measures."

"And what of Faris?'

"Well…" Hanna began.

"They're keeping you here until the court case?! But that's in a month!" Venka gripped the bars to the cell. Faris was the one in behind them, but she was feeling almost as trapped. Several guards and mages had their weapons trained on her, but she paid them no heed, none of them had even bothered trying to stop her from entering the long dark corridor that hid the holding cells for this specific prison complex, either from Vulcan's own orders, the intimidating power Venka displayed, or a more likely mix of both.

"Bureaucracy and the like Venka." Faris smiled comfortingly, "Come on, you've got to go, the longer you stay here the worse it'll be for you."

"I don't care, you shouldn't be in here!"

"Venka, I broke the law, you know I broke the law, it doesn't matter what reason I had, they caught me, so I'll have to defend myself legally."

"But anyone would have done what you…" Venka held her head down. "I'll take you out, come on!" She began to look in concentration, the guards tensed at her sudden shift.

Faris shook his head, "And where would we go?"

"To Surda!"

"There's a war going on, they'd be on high alert for new faces, even kids, especially when news of an escape reaches them."

"Then to Du Weldenvarden!"

"They would likely inquire about why we're here, and if you make too big a commotion like you're doing now, the Queen would have no choice but to order our extradition back into kingdom lands. And these poor guys are looking really uncomfortable." One of the guards coughed.

"Then, I'll take you to the-"

Faris started laughing, "Please don't say the dwarves, half the time they don't really think fondly of humans, and human children grow too quickly for their taste to deal with, and the problem with all of them is you're powerful enough to do anything you want unimpeded, and I've got blood on my hands, neither of us are exactly trustworthy as free agents."

Venka groaned, "Why do you think this is funny! You're being held here because that prim blowhard Rembrant wants to get payback, if they really cared they would have rescued those children! Not punish you for stopping the criminals!"

"Well unfortunately it's my word against heaps of circumstantial evidence, and besides, all I have to do is speak my case to them in the ancient language, I know exactly the things I did wrong, and so they can't try to pin stupid bs on me, and depending, the judge may have a conscience and let me off easy." He turned to one of the mages, who yelped, "I'm not gonna bite you geez! But yeah, depending he'll cut me a break, right?"

She shrugged, "Well sir"

"Call me Faris, I'm only eleven."

"…Faris…" She began, eying Venka gingerly, "Using your magic without authorization, especially to kill is a serious matter, of course depending on the circumstances, you may receive lesser punishment, this is the first time such a high-profile violation was committed by someone so young, but the seriousness of the violations requires this level of punishment, for public sentiment…" She stuttered a few apologies and the soldiers held their breath as Venka narrowed her eyes.

"Okay." She turned back to Faris, "You better be okay, if they did anything to you, tell me alright?"

Faris nodded, smiling, "Of course!" As she turned to leave, he looked at the guards, who merely stared at him. "What? Don't worry I took the drugged food, I couldn't cast magic if I wanted to." They still stared at him hard.

"Why didn't you leave, we heard about what you two are capable of, even while drugged you resisted the high interrogator's attempt to burrow into your mind, and you still remember the ancient language enough to coherently speak on your behalf, even when you can't use magic." The mage furrowed his brow. "I wouldn't have stood for that."

Faris stood up gingerly, and walked towards the front of his cell, under the light a few of the guards couldn't help but feel queasy over the scar tissue, open wounds, and nasty gashes over his skin below the neck, a few were old but the vast majority was new, the worst thing was the swollen lump in his left hand, his arm had been broken. "Well, thank you for the honesty, but at least I wasn't branded." He narrowed his eyes, his face chilling the guards. "A woman and little girl, barely eight, were branded, and whipped, and beaten like I was in order to get information out of them that was easily available through mental interrogation." He looked at his finger, it throbbed painfully as he inspected the bloody holes that used to be his fingernails. "The girl was missing two fingernails, the mother hand three broken fingers. There's no way she knew anything, and the mother's not the type to let her daughter suffer for her. And someone interrogating them would know she recently had her daughter's nails done in a really pretty way, and that she was looking forward to that treatment again in a month. Do you know what that means?"

He laughed at their silence, "It means they weren't questioned, they were tortured, but neither of them did badly enough to warrant such actions, unless the Broddring Kingdom is actually worse than the empire before it, it was done to piss me off, because otherwise I wouldn't have been put in temporary holdings with them." He frowned, "That tells me Rembrant probably has more than a few 'fair and neutral' agents on his payroll." A few of the guards flinched at his gaze and knowing eyes, focused despite the drug laced into his food. "I'm standing this torture because if they find me guilty, I'm officially a criminal, and I get to act like a criminal would act."

"What…." A few of the guards held their spears tightly.

"If I'm found to be acquitted on the other hand, I'll be able to advocate to destroy Rembrant politically, and also financially as a bonus token of my regard." He held the cold bars with his brutalized hands, exhausted from the movement and even standing given how badly he had been tortured. "You all better hope I'm found innocent or acquitted, because cute stuttering won't save you from losing two fingers for every nail you ripped off Marla."

Vulcan sighed in concern, he had only been allowed to see Faris once after they had been ushered in to the waiting penitentiary. Venka had grown impatient and walked into the building, Vulcan wanted to stay neutral but still warned them to allow her in. The fact the building wasn't being recklessly demolished was either a good sign, or a very bad sign. He gazed at the other children, he had passed by them before, and their expressions had before ranged from excitement and trepidation to awe and fear, right now, they were all intently staring at the entrance into the prison complex. It was one of the old ones under Galbatorix's rule, like all his prisons, they were large and cruel, perfectly suited to hold more people than any would deem appropriate. Now it housed mostly thieves and vagabonds, as well as the occasional countryside bandit.

If you worry so much enter the building yourself, or better yet let me destroy the dreaded thing.

No! That would be inappropriate, we represent the riders, we are at the status of kings and must move accordingly to our stature, especially amongst the common people, and especially in the midst of the young.

Bah! These pups are beginning to irritate me, get them to speak!"

Why don't you talk to them? Vulcan retorted, but he blinked in surprise as his dragon did just that.

"H-hello?" Nya began startled, looking at Vulcan, then outside to see the Bronze Dragon's eye glittering through the window.

You pups are too quiet, speak, I wish to understand how you feel of this matter.

Morgan was the first to speak up, "I wish Faris had told us…." They had reacted almost the same way to Venka when she relayed what Faris did and why he did it. "He had told us before he had had to kill, and Venka told us of the times she was almost kidnapped by the Black Hand, so we should have known that was something he could do if push comes to shove, but those men, what they did, I can't say I would have let them get away either, but I'm not even prudent enough to check for such atrocities. Th-they are so…"

"Atrocious" Katya finished. "We all saw the fairths of the uncovered burials, some of the bones showed sustained blunt force damage, especially in the head, chest, and pelvic area." She gripped her sword, "The limbs had been hacked off and more than a few had most of their teeth and jaws gone. And several had signs of being burned, different from magical flames, an oil burn."

Vulcan spat and swore a dwarven oath against bad omens, twisting his third ring exactly three quarters as he did. "Guntera's mercy… How could anyone do such things to their own clansmen?"

Vulcan, are you letting your emotions get the better of you?

Volund!? This is not the time to make quips, that boy is going to be punished for doing the right thing?!

As you said, there's nothing to be done about it, it would be inappropriate. The dragon yawned.

Rrgh, Vulcan stood, just as Venka came out, her face was somber and inscrutable as she sat with the rest of the group, she didn't respond to any of their prodding, choosing to sit in silence. Vulcan opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. "Are you ready to go." Venka was silent, choosing only to nod slightly. He turned to the rest of the group, they had been barred from entering, and Venka had stormed in before they could catch up. Despite that they nodded.

They have confidence in their youngest member.

Perhaps they do, but they must also help the girl it seems, she is the most emotional in this entire debacle.

"Alright, come on kids, let's get you back"

.

.

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Afterword:

It wouldn't be cheeky of me to say this is a Christmas present right?! Lol merry Christmas, and happy holidays